stylus

Apple has been looking at ways to extend the control power of stylus input methods, patenting a touch sensitive stylus which could allow for users to manipulate on screen objects depending on how and where they place their fingers on the stylus shaft itself. Read More

The writing is on the wall for more consolidation in the world of startups… both literally and figuratively. Today Anoto, a digital writing company based out of Sweden, announced that it would acquire longtime partner Livescribe, another a smart pen maker, for $15 million in a deal that is expected to close this month.
Specifically, Anoto says this is an all-cash deal and is based… Read More

The concept Galaxy Note 5 is at once a thing of genius and a nod to a benighted world before the modern touchscreen. Born in the swamps of the resistive LCD, the stylus lurched onto dry land and lives on as a reminder of our history. It is, to be sure, useful but on the Galaxy Note 5 it is a vestigial tool useful in parts of the world where handwriting is easier than tapping.
But what does… Read More

Apple has a new patent granted by the USPTO today (via AppleInsider) that describes a new type of stylus in detail, which can capture handwriting from a user, on a variety of surfaces and with a range of writing nibs that let it also write on paper, whiteboards or even an iPad’s capacitive touchscreen.
The stylus design uses accelerometers and other motion sensors to track movement… Read More

Wacom has a series of new stylus devices for tablets and smartphones that it’s launching today, including three new Bamboo devices and a new Intuos version, with two aimed specifically at the iPad with special Bluetooth-powered pressure sensitivity abilities. Two entry-level Bamboo styluses offer a better nib, with one adding an ink pen on the opposite end, and the Bamboo Stylus fineline… Read More

Pencil, the iPad stylus from app-maker turned hardware builder FiftyThree, is getting an update that allows it to change the character of lines drawn in its Paper app based on how you apply the unique tip of the pen to the iPad’s surface. It can do this thanks to iOS 8’s introduction of variable touch sizing, which lets developers specify a range of touch point sizes, from a… Read More

Apple has a new patent application published today by the USPTO (via AppleInsider), which details a stylus with a nib that can be extended to take advantage of multi-touch capabilities for a wider brush stroke, and that has built-in light sensors so that it can act as essentially an eye-dropper tool for the real world, capturing colors from physical objects to use in digital painting.
The… Read More

Hex3, the company behind a successfully Kickstarted pressure-sensitive stylus called JaJa, and a follow-up stylus for tablets, called Nota, which had a (relatively) fine 3.7mm tip to make scribbling on a slate more precise, is expanding its line-up with three new stylus products — under a new brand name, YuFu. Read More

Adobe surprised everyone by showing off a new hardware effort today at its annual MAX conference, including Project Mighty and Napoleon. Mighty is a pressure-sensitive digital pen that works with tablets and stores a wide variety of settings and preferences in the cloud. Adobe showed it off working on an iPad, and it looked similar to what we’ve seen from existing pressure-sensitive… Read More

Latest Crunch Report

The number of options out there for iPad styli at this point is almost crazy. But Ten One Design has always made solid ones, and the Pogo Connect also adds pressure sensitivity via Bluetooth 4.0. It’s a slightly different take than others in this space, and one that benefits immensely from extremely low power consumption. Read More

Meet the Hex3 JaJa stylus, a pressure-sensitive drawing tool for the iPad (and other tablets, too) that transmits information to the device via sound waves, eschewing the need for a Bluetooth connection. It’s only one of a recent crop of pressure-sensitive styli for the iPad, but its unique, quirky design provides both its big advantages and its most significant flaws. Read More

The Pogo Connect from Ten One Design is maybe one of my most-anticipated gadgets of 2012, a pressure sensitive iPad stylus that uses Bluetooth 4.0 and ships very soon. In the meantime, the company has detailed a couple very interesting features today as it announces that pre-orders are now officially open to all. The Connect will offer interchangeable magnetic tips, and also a homing… Read More

If that microstylus just isn’t cutting it for you, then you may want to see what Samsung has been mulling over. A recently published patent reveals some interesting new tricks that Samsung may be planning to stick in their forthcoming styluses (styli?).
I don’t need to tell you that Samsung has something of a fixation on pen-based interfaces — take the pocket-sized Galaxy… Read More

Two Apple patents have just surfaced in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, both of which describe methods for stylus input on a capacitive touchscreen, as well as other surfaces.
Now, Apple hearts patenting things, whether the company actually has plans to act on them or not. Many of them end up untouched, and even forgotten, so there’s no telling if we’ll ever see a super cool… Read More

So you don’t like a stylus, but you don’t want to get your iPhone screen all dirty either. Easy solution, build a knob that will simulate the act of touching your iPhone screen. This is an easy build, but it’ll take some tweaking to get the fabric in the right places to work properly. Seems like there’s been quite a few iPhone related knobs lately. Read More

Tablet PCs never really caught on, did they? And yet, nearly every laptop sold today has a touchpad / trackpad thingie. Wouldn’t it be cool to use that for the few tablet-y things you’d like to do, like signing your autograph on a document, or making a doodle? Well now you can, with Autograph! Read More

PNF (Pen And Free Co.) released the Duo, so you can turn your laptop into a touchscreen without ripping it apart. You just install the receiving station on top or on the side of your screen, define the area you want to use as a tablet and that’s all. However, you have to use a stylus to operate. The laptop version supports up to 15.4″, the monitor version to 22″. Oh and it… Read More

Back in December of 2007, I brought you news of the Pogo stylus for the iPhone and iPod Touch. I remarked that the initial price of $25 sounded a bit expensive for an aluminum stick and that a stylus sort of defeats the purpose of the iPhone/iPod Touch. Some of you agreed with me and some of you made a good point that the Pogo would work well in the wintertime (assuming you don’t buy… Read More

Olympus Japan unveiled a new point and shoot camera [JP], the μ1060, which will become available on August 30 for $360 (no word on availability and pricing outside Japan yet).
The successor model of the μ1020 (Stylus 1020 in the US) comes with the following features:
– 1/2.33″ 10 megapixel CCD sensor
– 37mm-260mm lens
– 7x optical zoom
– ISO sensitivity of up… Read More

Those of you who want to be able to eat honey-dipped powdered donuts without having to put your iPhone or iPod Touch down for five minutes may or may not take great pleasure in this affordable, yet wonderful stylus from ThinkGeek.
It’s got a spring-loaded tip, which aims to replicate on-screen dragging and the opposite end of the stylus hides a SIM eject tool “perfect for those of… Read More